Barons overcome Eagles with second-half surge

Manheim Central has one of the most tradition-rich programs in District Three, if not the state.

But after watching his team play a mistake-filled first half in their key Section Two battle Friday night at Cocalico, first-year Barons’ Coach Dave Hahn felt his team needed a reminder of that history heading to the locker room trailing the Eagles, 15-7.

“I’m not usually a brimstone and fire guy,” he said. “At half-time, I usually like to coach the guys up but there is a strong tradition here and these guys weren’t living up to it in the first half. They needed to know about that strong tradition and the guys that played before them and how they played the game. If they wanted to be respected by those guys they had to step up and play.”

They got the message.

The Barons went out and outscored the Eagles 14-0 in the second half to come away with a huge 21-15 victory. Damon Camacho scored both second-half touchdowns while the Barons’ defense put the clamps on Cocalico over the final 24 minutes to key the victory.

“At halftime, coach gave us a talk about the history and about our team and it kind of got us ready,” Camacho, who rushed for 156 yards and three scores on 23 carries, said. “We didn’t want to let our former teammates down, so we picked it up.”

The win kept the Barons’ hopes alive for at least a share of the Section Two title as they improved to 4-1 in section play (6-2 overall). On the other hand, the Cocalico loss pretty much killed its chances in the section. The Eagles fell to 3-2 in section play (4-4 overall) with the defeat.

“We didn’t execute very well,” Cocalico Coach Dave Gingrich said. “They out-played us. I thought their defense played very well. Going into the game we had some ideas that we thought we could do but we just really didn’t do those things. We can blame ourselves or we can give them credit. I’ll give them credit.”

The first four of Cocalico’s second-half possessions ended in a pair of turnovers and two punts. The latter turnover&tstr;an interception by Drew Eshleman at midfield&tstr;put the Barons in position to knot the score.

Still trailing 15-7, MC drove to the Cocalico 14, converting a big 10-yard fourth down play when QB Kody Kegarise hooked up with Austin Geib to keep the drive alive. Five plays later, Camacho went in from one yard out with 9:09 remaining in the fourth. The Barons then tied it at 15-15 when Jake Novak hit Kegarise on a reverse pass on the two-point conversion attempt.

“I was a little bit scared to run it,” Hahn said of the conversion play “We practiced it earlier in the year but we didn’t practice it this week so I was a little scared to run it but I got a little encouragement that we should. I told the kids that if we scored, we were going for two to get back in the game. I didn’t want to be down 15-14 because then we’d start pressing. I wanted to even the score up and then go from there.”

Cocalico, which was held to just 200 yards on the ground on 43 carries, went three-and-out on its next possession, and the Barons got it back at midfield with 7:38 to go. They drove to the Eagle 20 where Camacho broke free off right tackle for a 20-yard score with 4:57 to play to take the lead. A bad snap, however on the PAT attempt kept the Eagles within striking distance at 21-15.

Cocalico did respond on its next possession, starting from its own 20. A 24-yard pass play from quarterback Dante Haines to DJ Fabiani got the Eagles going. Three plays later, fullback Hunter High (15-79) ripped off a 30-yard run and all of a sudden Cocalico was threatening with a first down at the Baron 14.

However, the Eagles would come up empty. After two straight High runs netted them five yards, Haines had a pass go off Trevor Fichtorn’s hands. That set up a fourth-and-five pass, which also fell incomplete.

“I thought our pass protection was OK but they just had everything covered,” Gingrich said of the fourth-down play. “We thought we had a good play called but they covered it very well.”

The Barons, who bounced back from a 42-14 loss to L-S last week, took over with 2:28 to play and ran for a pair of first downs to close things out.

“It’s really big for us to get this win because our backs were against the wall,” Camacho said. “We had to bounce back and we did it.”

Hahn added, “(getting this win) is very important. You never want to lose your kids and you don’t want doubt to creep in. It was important for us to get that win and to shake that loss last week out of our system. We’re battling a lot of injuries and we are doubting ourselves so to get a win this week was just huge.”

It certainly didn’t look as though this would end up being Manheim’s night, especially early when the Barons gift-wrapped two early scores by the Eagles.

After a bad snap on the game’s first play handed the Eagles the ball at the Baron three, High barreled in from there to give the Eagles a quick 7-0 lead just 21 seconds into the game.

Then, later in the quarter with the Barons punting from their own 24, another snap went awry, sailing over punter Derek Adams’ head and through the end zone for a safety to up the Eagle lead to 9-0.

Cocalico could have increased the lead after the ensuing free kick as the Eagles took over at the Baron 48. However, a holding call on the Eagles set them back and they eventually turned the ball over on downs.

Three plays later, Camacho broke free on a 49-yard touchdown run and it was suddenly a game again at 9-7.

“We didn’t capitalize very much,” Gingrich said of the first half. “We should have come away with more points and we didn’t. That’s a tribute to them. When their backs were against the wall, they held strong. We just didn’t cash in when we had opportunities.”

The Eagles did find the endzone again midway through the second quarter, putting together what turned out to be their most impressive drive of the night. Cocalico went on a mammoth 17-play, 80-yard drive that was finished off by Haines on a one-yard sneak with 5:57 to go. However, the extra point attempt was wide, keeping the score at 15-7.